Is it Addiction or Trauma?

Are addictions a way we unknowingly cope with trauma? Is it possible that our culture copes with traumas, no matter how seeminglyinsignificant, through numbing ourselves with over using or over doing things such as alcohol, drugs, shopping, working, gaming, and/or whatever else we may be using to cope? Numbing can even be binging on our favorite Netflix series. It is typical to hear people say, I just want to relax. But what are we all trying to “relax” from?

Trauma doesn’t have to be a big, scary event. Trauma is what people experience or perceive it to be. It can be something that happened in childhood. Parents divorcing can have a life-long effect on a person, or being ridiculed in school can feel traumatic. Or it can be things that happen in adulthood, a car accident, getting fired from a needed job, or getting divorced. According to the Merriman Dictionary, trauma can be an emotional upset or a disordered psychic or behavioral state resulting from severe mental or emotional stress or physical injury.

My perception of something that happened to me will be different than your perception of that same thing. My identical twin sister and I have many different memories of our childhood. Even though we were brought up in the same family, had mostly the same experiences, we, today, see life differently on many topics. As an example, we both love animals. She, in my perception, is an animal nut. She has many dogs and horses, and will always have many dogs and horses. She is even nicknamed Many Horse. Me, on the other hand, have no dogs or horses, or even cats. Even though I have had pets in the past, it’s too much of a responsibility and something I don’t need at this time in my life. 

She and I have talked about this before, and both believe it is how we viewed our childhood experiences. Growing up, we had a lot of animals, mostly dogs and cats, but also some pet rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, and even a chipmunk.  At one time I counted fourteen cats in our house, most were kittens, but in my view, it was a lot of cats. My twin loved having these animals in our home. I hated it. It was too much, especially since we lived in a normal sized neighborhood, not a farm or ranch, so most all of these animals were living in our house. One of the things that bothered me the most was when someone opened our front door, the dog would run out, and someone would have to run to catch him. Well, it seemed I was always that one. So, perception. It is always different.

I’m not saying that this event would lead me to drinking or numbing myself. What I am saying is a young child’s mind tries to understand why things happen the way they do. Children do their best to make sense of the events in their lives. Many times, the way a child makes sense of something that happens to them is by taking responsibility for it, to blame themselves. This way of thinking helps them feel they have some control in their lives. It can also cause shame, which can cause isolation and loneliness. Then people start doubting themselves and their sense of worthiness.

One of the problems of feeling shame is that we typically don’t talk to anyone about why we feel shame. We believe they won’t understand or, even worse, that we will feel more shame because they will agree that we are the problem! Shame kills self-esteem. It’s something we don’t talk about or that we want anyone to know that we even feel. This can lead to us to numbing our feelings cause numbing our feelings feels a lot better than feeling shame, that is for sure! 

What would happen if instead of numbing our feelings, we learned to be present in the moment. What if we felt the hurt or pain or shame? In my life I am working on being present instead of avoiding my feelings. It is not easy. I have had many years of programming not to feel. When I was young, we didn’t talk about things that made us feel ashamed or hurt. If I did, someone would say, “get over it” or “what’s wrong with you!” or other dismissive comments. Now I know that people would make those remarks because they didn’t want to feel or they didn’t know how to soothe someone in pain. Today we are learning to be with our feelings, and others’ feelings too. And being present in the moment helps us learn to be with our pain and others as well. Being present, feeling the feelings, experiencing the moment. It works. It’s not easy, but it works. And, it is grounding! It feels good once you get used to it. It is living life. Because being able to feel the hurt and pain allows us to feel more deeply the joy and love. It’s amazing how this works. Numbing limits our depth of feeling, every feeling. Now, I feel a deeper joy and beauty in my life because I’ve allowed myself to feel my pain, and understand it.